Mesh Quality Improvement in Computer Aided Engineering

1. A method for use in meshing a computer-aided design (CAD) domain in a computer-aided design (CAD) or a computer-aided engineering (CAE) system, the method comprising: generating a mesh by splitting the CAD domain into a plurality of sub-domains, creating a sub-domain mesh corresponding to a respective sub-domain among the plurality of sub-domains, optimizing interior elements of respective sub-domain meshes of the plurality of sub-domains, and merging resulting respective sub-domain meshes together to form the mesh; obtaining a set of mesh elements by extracting, from the generated mesh of the CAD domain, mesh elements which do not satisfy a preselected mesh quality metric, and using mesh element connectivity with respect to the extracted mesh elements to identify additional mesh elements for inclusion in the set such that a number of mesh elements in the set is expanded to a required level; decomposing the set of mesh elements into connected sub-meshes; executing a serial mesh element optimization process on respective sub-meshes independently and in parallel, under a condition that boundary nodes of the sub-meshes are not moved, to obtain optimized sub-meshes; and obtaining an optimized mesh of the CAD domain by integrating the optimized sub-meshes into the generated mesh of the CAD domain.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the respective sub-meshes are created using a parallel decoupled meshing process.

3. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the interior elements of the respective sub-domain meshes are optimized the serial mesh element optimization process.

4. The method as claimed in claim 3 , wherein the serial mesh optimization process of claim 3 is executed on the respective sub-meshes independently and in parallel.

5. An apparatus for use in meshing a computer-aided design (CAD) or computer-aided engineering (CAE) system, the apparatus comprising: a meshing generator configured to generate a mesh, the meshing generator including: a cutter configured to split the CAD domain into a plurality of sub-domains, a sub-domain meshing creator configured to create a sub-domain mesh corresponding to a respective sub-domain among the plurality of sub-domains, a sub-domain mesh optimizer configured to optimize interior elements of respective sub-domain meshes of the plurality of sub-domains; and a mesh merger configured to merge resulting respective sub-domain meshes together to form the mesh; a set extractor configured to receive the generated mesh from the meshing generator and to obtain a set of mesh elements by extracting, from the generated mesh of the CAD domain, mesh elements which do not satisfy a preselected mesh quality metric, the set extractor including an element extractor operable to extract mesh elements from the generated mesh of the CAD domain which do not satisfy a preselected mesh quality metric, and a set expander operable to expand a number of mesh elements in the set to a required level by using mesh element connectivity with respect to the extracted mesh elements to identify additional mesh elements for inclusion in the set; a sub-mesh creator configured to decompose the set of mesh elements into connected sub-meshes; a sub-mesh optimizer configured to execute a serial mesh element optimization process on respective sub-meshes independently and in parallel, under a condition that boundary nodes of the respective sub-meshes are not moved, to obtain optimized sub-meshes; and a mesh integrator configured to obtain an optimized mesh of the CAD domain by integrating the optimized sub-meshes into the generated mesh of the CAD domain.

6. The apparatus as claimed in claim 5 wherein the sub-domain meshing creator is operable to create the respective sub-meshes using a parallel decoupled meshing process.

7. The apparatus as claimed in claim 5 , wherein the sub-domain optimizer is operable to optimize the interior elements of the respective sub-domain meshes using the serial mesh element optimization process.

8. The apparatus as claimed in claim 7 , wherein the sub-domain optimizer is operable to execute the mesh optimization process on the respective sub-meshes independently and in parallel.

9. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing a computer program which, when run on a computer or network of computers, causes that computer or network to perform the method of claim 1 .